Have you considered switching to an Instagram business account? Maybe you are considering it but you heard various conflicting ideas on this subject. We give you 7 good reasons why an Instagram business account is right for your brand.
why switch to instagram business account
You want your brand to have a presence on Instagram but still are using a personal profile to grow your following. If you are, you are missing out on a lot of opportunities.
Many people are scared to switch because they heard, the reach & engagement is limited with an Instagram business profile. I heard the same rumors but it isn’t true. Facebook is looking to grow their ad revenue first on Instagram before limiting anyone’s reach. They are going to do it gradually over the years, just like they did with Facebook Pages. They don’t want to scare anyone out of their platform.
Now is actually a great time to take advantage of an Instagram business account to grow your presence. The business account comes with a lot of helpful tools which we cover in this article but first let’s see how to switch to an Instagram business account.
- Go to your settings
- Click “Switch to Business Profile”
- Connect your Facebook Page
- Choose your Profile category
- Review your Contact information
Once you signed up for your Instagram business profiles, you will gain access to a ton of advanced features, like contact information, Instagram Insights, and promoted posts. Let’s explore in more details all these features.
1. Instagram Insights
First and foremost, the Instagram business profile offers analytics. You need to have a minimum of 100 followers in order to use this tool. If you just started, don’t sweat it, you’ll reach that number in no time.
Instagram analytics give you access to:
How people interact with your brand:
- Profile visits
- Website Clicks
Discovery: How many people see your content and they found it.
- Reach
- Impressions
How is your content performing:
- Feed posts
- Stories posts
- Promotions posts
Who is your audience and where are they located?
- Top locations by cities & countries
- What is the age distribution of your followers
- What are their genders
- When are your follower most active by the day & by the hour
These tools will help you understand how to improve your content over time by measuring what works and what doesn’t. It can help you focus on certain cities and countries where you are most popular, adjust your brand’s voice to your follower’s age and gender. Last but not least, you get to discover when your followers are the most active during each hour of every day, so you can post at the best time possible.
2. Instagram Ads.
Have you ever wished you could just promote one of your Instagram posts? Just like you do on Facebook?
Only Instagram Business Accounts are able to promote a post. If you would like to launch an ad on Instagram it’s possible without a business account, but you have to do it through the Facebook Ad manager.
Once you upgrade to a business account, you are able to promote each of your posts. From there, you decide what you would like to accomplish; profile visits, website traffic or promotion views. You select who you would like to target, how much you are willing to spend and how long you want the promotion to run for. You can do it all, directly inside Instagram.
3. Business Profile Tune-up
As a business account, your Instagram profile gets a few extra features on your profile page. Just like the personal profile, you can add a website link but you can also different ways for people to contact you.
You can add and display your:
- Phone Number
- Address
- Add an action button. The action button connects your profile with a third party tool so your customer can easily interact with you. Let your customer book an appointment, buy a ticket, order a delivery, etc…
These new options let people get in touch much faster with you. They don’t have to search your website for your contact info. It is handed to them directly on your Instagram Business Profile.
4. Schedule and Auto-Post
That’s right, you can schedule your future posts and auto post them. However, Auto-post is only available with a third party tool such as Planoly and you MUST HAVE an Instagram Business Account.
Previously, you could schedule your post with one of these apps, but you would receive a notification when it would be time to post. Instagram API didn’t allow third-party to auto-post on your behalf. Well, things have changed, you are finally able to do it.
5. Share Links in your Instagram Stories
Instagram Business accounts are able to share links in their Stories.
Have you always wanted to get that SWIPE UP feature? Only Instagram business account can add a link to their stories, once they reach 10,000 followers. Once you reach that number, you will be able to use that link to grow your email list, sell products, drive more traffic, etc…
6. Add Shoppable tags to your posts
Just like on Facebook, you have the ability to tag your products in your organic Instagram post. That’s right, no paid promotion involved.
In order to do so, you will need to set up a product database inside your Facebook Business Manager.
Sure it may be a two-step process for some of you, creating your Facebook Business Manager account and creating a product database but it’s really worth the effort.
7. Influencer Marketing promotion.
Do you use Instagram influencers to promote your brand and products? Are you planning to go this route?
In the US, you need to comply with the FTC and disclose in your post when you pay an influencer to promote your product. You have probably seen one in your feed before. Just below the username, it says Paid partnership with…
Influencer marketing is fairly new but is growing at a very fast pace. If you are planning to use influencers to promote your product and live in the US, you will need to disclose it.
Another benefit from disclosing such partnership is the fact that you get access to the performance metrics of the post directly from your Facebook account.
If you live outside the US, your country’s regulations might be different and you may very well not need to disclose such partnership. However we live in an age where brand transparency is very important, and I would highly advise disclosing such a deal, especially in you live in the EU.
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To Recap:
The main benefit of switching to an Instagram Business account is to allow brands to connect with their fans and to better understand their fans actions on Instagram.
If you want to grow your brand on Instagram, then you must switch to an Instagram business account. Gaining access to Instagram insight alone is worth it. It is a goldmine of information regarding your followers and how well your content is doing.
I highly recommend you to switch to an Instagram business account and if you really don’t like it, you can always switch back anytime you want.
What are your thoughts on this subject? Please let me know in the comments.
Guez Marketing Founder, social media strategist, marketer and content creator with a passion for connecting people through technology. When he is not helping business owners build a strong online presence he loves to discover new ethnic food, to watch sci-fi movies and to craft delicious cocktails.
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